A Blog by Dauphine Press

We love our Designer’s Desktop series because it is a peek into the creative minds of our design team and showcases designs that they would love to see in print. These designs often focus on details that look great when letterpress printed or are the designer’s version of perfect design balance.

Today’s letterpress invitation design has a retro mid-century modern feel. The clean and minimal face of the card incorporates two clean all-caps fonts and is framed with simple lines … with just a hint of retro with the starburst details in the outer most frame. On the back of the card, the throwback pattern is created from the non-printed portions of the design. With the green areas of the pattern pressed into the paper, the white line pattern appears raised and creates a great texture.

Do you love the feel of this design as much as we do? This version is for an engagement party, but it could easily be incorporated into a wedding day invitation. You can choose to work with us or one of our exclusive retailers to create your custom wedding invitation. Contact us to get started!

We began our Designer Desktop series to share hidden gems that will inspire you to create a unique design for your wedding invitation suite. These are designs we love, but have not had the opportunity to print quite yet.

One of these treasures is our Kentfield rehearsal dinner invitation. This petite card was designed as an accessory card to the main invitation. Without a separate mailing envelope, a rehearsal dinner invitation included with the wedding invitation can be any size you wish.

We all know how special the group who attends your rehearsal and rehearsal dinner is, so why not create an invitation for that event that feels just as special? This two color design includes the all-over floral pattern from our Kentfield invitation on this small square card with a pretty layout displaying multiple fonts that make it memorable.

Can we help you create a unique design for the people closest to you; a design for showing that close group of friends and family how much you cherish them and appreciate them standing by your side? Contact us or one of our retailers and we will help you define every detail of your wedding stationery suite.

The Dauphine Press design aesthetic has always been partially about layering. We love creating rich and eye-catching designs; ones that layer textures, color and pattern. We often have couples approach us, wanting to create a wedding invitation suite full of layered patterns and colors, so today we want to share some of our tips for designing a truly stunning invitation!

We’re sharing some of our most popular designs that incorporate different levels of layering. Along the way, we will share our Tips + Advice for making these looks work.

We’re starting off with our Marinwood trifold save the date card. This card is on the petite side, but holds so much design on just these three small panels. The trick to making this look work is the combination of a decorative floral for one panel and a bold graphic for the second panel. Keeping each pattern in just one color, then sprinkling those same two colors over the rest of the design, are what makes this piece of wedding stationery one of our most popular!

Keeping one color reserved for each design element is a trick that also works on our Princeton wedding invitation. This beauty combines two layers of foil. The pearl foil is used for the ornate background pattern and we’ve used just a single color, silver foil, for the monogram and invitation wording. Princeton is also the perfect display of creating texture with pattern. With the more subtle color in the background, the texture created from the foil really makes this card stand out.

Our Roseberry invitation suite has been customized in numerous ways and it is always gorgeous! Our advice here is to select your three favorite colors from your wedding palette and only choose two of those colors per printed card. Then, dress each piece up with a third layer of color that isn’t printed – like the Pool Blue backer on the invitation, the Persimmon envelope used for the response card and the Mustard yellow invitation envelope. Spreading the color evenly throughout your entire suite is the best way to create balance!

You may be seeing a trend here, keeping your bolder elements and patterns to a single color print run. Our Camille wedding invitation suite uses the same decorative pattern, but in different colors and is displayed in different ways on each card to keep it interesting to the eye. This suite also layers the quatrefoil design element – framing the copy of the main invitation, the diecut shape of the favor tag, the smaller frame on the response card and the repeated quatrefoil pattern on the envelope liner.

We leave you today with our Larkspur wedding invitation suite. This invitation displays patterns of varying sizes, which is a good tip for pairing patterns. From a little distance, a fine pattern makes a soft statement, like the one on the Larkspur schedule of events card. In this suite, the ornate, detailed pattern is saved for the main invitation card – which in this case incorporates gold foil and two colors of letterpress ink! Treating the foil like a neutral and using it in the same way on each card (for the delicate frame that divides the pattern from the wording on each piece) keeps things balanced.

We hope you’re inspired to layer patterns and color on your wedding invitation suite. If you have any questions or if you’re ready to start designing, just contact us or your local retailer.

We wait patiently each December for Pantone’s Color of the Year announcement. Were you as thrilled as we were to see two (!) colors chosen for 2016? We love that Pantone changed the game a little this year. Their choice of two colors fed our love of choosing color palettes. When designing wedding invitations, one of our favorite steps is finding the perfect color combination and Pantone has done exactly that with their choice of Rose Quartz and Serenity.

We were inspired to use these two colors on an invitation, of course! We chose our Calistoga wedding invitation suite and transformed it into a look that creates a calming and beautiful overall feel with a balance of warm and cool tones. What better expression of a marital union – balanced, calm, beautiful?

In the two versions above, we are showing two ways to create this look. We have our existing color palette of letterpress inks and we also offer custom ink colors. There is a little bit of an up-charge for custom ink colors, so you can choose the best option for your budget. For the version using our existing color palette, we are suggesting a combination of our Rose and French Blue letterpress inks. The copy is split evenly between these two colors and then we added a splash of the Rose on the geometric pattern covering the back of the invitation and framed it all in a French Blue painted edge! For the custom version, we’re suggesting pastel PMS 9281 for Rose and PMS 7451 for Serenity.

Are you thinking of using the Pantone Color of the Year for the Wedding of the Year (yours!)? If you would like to see us transform your favorite design with this color palette, contact us or one of our retailers to start the design process.

An all-metallic color palette is such a great choice for the holidays. We especially love how this client customization mixes three different metallics – copper, silver and platinum.

With the help of our exclusive retailer The Stovall Collection, this family started with a thick brilliant white card stock and layered in a festive seasonal pattern of pine boughs in our copper foil. They repeated the color and pattern on the envelope liner, which reflects the abundance of natural beauty during the winter season. They then chose satin silver foil for the wording, making their holiday greeting stand out against the background pattern. With a place for their holiday photo and a platinum colored envelope, this card is ready for the mailboxes of friends and family!

Are you in love with metallic foil as much as we are? Are you wanting to layer your favorite metals on special stationery? A New Years greeting or wedding invitation?! Contact us or one of our exclusive retailers to get a consultation on the best way to go about layering your favorite design details!

And, a very Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating this week! From all of us at Dauphine Press, we wish you the merriest of holidays with your family and friends!